Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2brh9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-28T22:59:00.812Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Simon of Pattishall, Pioneer Professional Judge*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 July 2014

Ralph V. Turner
Get access

Extract

The latter part of the twentieth century may not find many of us wishing to pay tribute to bureaucrats, but as Helen Cam reminded us, the civil servant “deserves more credit than he has yet had for building up and maintaining our precious tradition of law and order.” In the late twelfth century and the thirteenth century the process of “bureaucratization” first got underway in England. An early professional civil servant, one specializing in judicial activity, was Simon of Pattishall. His name surfaces in the records in 1190, and it disappears after 1216. His time of activity, then, coincides with an important period for English common law: the years between “Glanvill” and Magna Carta.

Simon was one of that group of royal judges who might be termed the first “professionals,” a group that took shape by the middle years of Richard I's reign. By the time of John, about ninety men acted at various times as royal judges, either at the Bench at Westminster, with the court following the king, or as itinerant justices. Many of these had only temporary appointments, making circuits in the counties; but a core of fifteen, who concentrated on the work of the courts, can be regarded as early members of a professional judiciary. Simon of PattishalPs is perhaps the most respected name among the fifteen. He had the longest career on the bench, from 1190 until 1216. He founded a judicial dynasty, for his clerk, Martin of Pattishall, became a judge, as did his clerk, William Raleigh, who had as his clerk Henry of Bracton, author of the great treatise on English law.

Type
Research Article
Information
Albion , Volume 9 , Issue 2 , Summer 1977 , pp. 115 - 127
Copyright
Copyright © North American Conference on British Studies 1977

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

This article is a revised version of a paper read to the Southwestern Social Science Association, Dallas, Texas., April 8, 1976.

References

1 Cam, Helen, The Hundred and the Hundred Rolls (London, 1930), p. 21.Google Scholar

2 Cockayne, G. E., ed., The Complete Peerage (London; new edition, 1910–1959), X: 312Google Scholar, n. “h”; Lee, Sidney, ed., Dictionary of National Biography (London, 1900—), XV: 474.Google Scholar

3 They served at least ten terms at Westminister or with the court coram rege, plus making eyres.

4 Only two of the fifteen: Eustace de Fauconberg and Richard de Mucegros.

5 Complete Peerage, X: 311Google Scholar. Farrer, William, Honors and Knights Fees (London and Manchester, 1923–1925), I: 92Google Scholar, citing a crown debt owed by Roger dean of Pattishall in 1201, suggested that Simon was descended from a family of hereditary rural deans. But Complete Peerage, X: 311–12Google Scholar, n. ‘f’, points out that Roger was not dean of Pattishall, but merely held a benefice there, while his title was dean of Brackley.

6 Pipe Roll 3 and 4 Richard I (Pipe Roll Society, New Series; London, 1926), p. 201Google Scholar; Farrer, , Honors and Knights Fees, 1:92.Google Scholar

7 Richardson, H. G. and Sayles, G. O., The Governance of Medieval England from the Conquest to Magna Carta (Edinburgh, 1963), p. 274Google Scholar. For an older but similar view, see Thompson, James Westfall, The Literacy of the Laity in the Middle Ages (Univ. of Calif. Publications in Education, IX: Berkeley, 1939), p. 180.Google Scholar

8 Orme, Nicholas, English Schools in the Middle Ages (New York and London, 1973), pp. 293–325.Google Scholar

9 Richardson, H. G., “The Schools of Northampton in the Twelfth Century,” English Historical Review, LVI(1941); 595–605CrossRefGoogle Scholar; “The Oxford Law School under John,” Law Quarterly Review, LVII(1941): 319–38.Google Scholar

10 Turner, Ralph V., “Roman Law in England before the Time of Bracton,” Journal of British Studies XV (1975): 23.Google Scholar

11 Ibid., p. 24.

12 Johnson, Charles, ed., Dialogue de Scaccario (London, 1950), p. 5.Google Scholar

13 Denholm-Young, Noel, Seignorial Administration in England (Oxford, 1937), p. 70Google Scholar; Stenton, Doris M., ed., Rolls of the Justices in Eyre for Lincolnshire (1218-19) and Worcestershire (1221) (Selden Society, LIII; London, 1934), p. xvi.Google Scholar

14 Richard of Herriard, James of Potterne, and Master Ralph of Stokes.

15 E. g. Henry of Whiston, who was associated with John before he became king, or Roger Huscarl, who came from John's own honor of Wallingford.

16 Pegues, Frank, “The Clericus in English Royal Administration,” English Historical Review, LXX (1956): 541.Google Scholar

17 Pipe Roll 2 Richard I (Pipe Roll Society, New Series; London, 1925), pp. 6, 26Google Scholar; a document recorded in Chronica Rogeri de Hovedene, ed. Stubbs, William (Rolls Series, London, 1868–1871), III: 136Google Scholar, (28 July 1191) states that he became custodian of Northampton Castle.

18 Public Record Office Lists and Indexes, IX, List of Sheriffs for England and Wales from the Earliest Times to A.D. 1831 (London, 1898), p. 43Google Scholar; Pipe Roll 7 Richard I (Pipe Roll Society, New Series, London, 1929); p. 217Google Scholar, indicates that he was sheriff in 1194. For fifteen years he owed 69 s. and 9 d. for the farm of Essex, , Pipe Roll 7 Richard I, p. 217Google Scholar, Pipe Roll 8 John (1942), p. 228Google Scholar, until he was finally forgiven the debt, Pipe Roll 11 John (1949), p. 186.Google Scholar

19 Harris, Brian E., The English Sheriffs in the Reign of King John, M.A. Thesis, Nottingham, 1961Google Scholar, Appendix I, “A List of Sheriffs …,” p. 200.

20 Pipe Roll 10 Richard I (Pipe Roll Society, New Series; London, 1932), pp. 125, 165, 210.Google Scholar

21 Richardson, H. G., English Jewry under the Angevin Kings (London, 1960), p. 136.Google Scholar

22 Simon was custodian with another Northants, man, Walter of Preston, when the castle was taken from of Huntington, Earl David, Rotuli Litterarum Clausarum (Record Commission, London, 1833), I, 122bGoogle Scholar; Rotuli Litterarum Patentium (Record Commission, London, 1835), p. 94b.Google Scholar

23 As Richardson, H. G. maintained, Memoranda Roll 1 John (Pipe Roll Society, New Series; London, 1943), pp. xiii–xvGoogle Scholar; Richardson and Sayles, Governance, p. 210.

24 West, Francis J., “The Curia Regis in the Late Twelfth and Early Thirteenth Centuries,” Historical Studies (Australia and New Zealand), VI (1954): 173–85CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Brian Kemp, “Exchequer and Bench in the later twelfth century—separate or identical tribunals?” English Historical Review, LXXXVIII (1973): 559-73.

25 E. g. fines offered to Simon rather than at the Exchequer: Rotuli de Oblatis et Finibus (Record Commission, London, 1835), p. 127Google Scholar, for release from military service overseas; pp. 131, 349, for custodies; p. 132, for permission to remain unmarried. Other financial tasks: Rot. Lit. Claus., I, 34Google Scholar, Simon to show the sheriff a debt; p. 126, Simon returned to the Chamber 15 marks for the widow of Walter of Wahull.

26 E. g. Pipe Roll 1 John (Pipe Roll Society, New Series; London, 1933), pp. 84, 218, 227Google Scholar; Pipe Roll 5 John (1938), pp. 104, 252Google Scholar; Pipe Roll 7 John (1941), p. 104Google Scholar; Rotuli et Liberate ac de Mists et Praestitis (Record Commission, London, 1844), pp. 89, 100.Google Scholar

27 Pipe Roll 1 John, pp. 29, 36, 78, 84, 217, 227, 267; Stenton, Doris M., ed., Pleas before the King or his Justices, 1198-1202 (Selden Society, LXVII, LXVIII, LXXXIII, LXXXrV; London, 1948–1956), 1:137.Google Scholar

28 Rot. Lit. Claus., I: 164bGoogle Scholar, Simon assigned with two others to the archbishopric of Canterbury.

29 Stenton, , Pleas before King or Justices, III, “The Development of the Judiciary, 1100-1216,” pp. lxxix–ccxciv.Google Scholar

30 Ibid., I: 49-50.

31 Cartae Antiquae Rolls 1-10 (Pipe Roll Society, New Series; London, 1939), pp. 61, 124–25, no. 104, 248.Google Scholar

32 Stenton, , Pleas before King of Justices, I: 78.Google Scholar

33 James of Potterne, Henry de Pont-Audemar, and Roger Huscarl.

34 Rot. de Lib. ac de Mis., p. 188, 10 marks payment to the men who arranged Simon's crossing to Ireland.

35 “Martin of Pateshull and William Raleigh,” Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research, XXVI (1953): 164.Google Scholar

36 Pipe Roll lists of amercements refer to eyres of “Simon of Pattishall and his companions.”

37 Pegues, , “The Clericus in Eng. Admin.,” p. 546.Google Scholar

38 Flower, Cyril, An Introduction to the Curia Regis Rolls (Selden Society, LXII; London, 1943), p. 10Google Scholar, points out that duplicate and even triplicate rolls of sessions have survived.

39 Dial. de Scaccp. 77.

40 The fact of preservation of his rolls indicate this; out of twelve eyre rolls surviving from John's reign, eleven are from eyres which Simon led, Stenton, Doris M., English Justice Between the Norman Conquest and the Great Charter (American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia, 1964), p. 98, n. 4Google Scholar. Also a notation on one roll that “Martin the clerk of Lord Simon of Pattishall” was to turn it over to the sheriff, Stenton, , Pleas before King or Justices, II: 148, no. 537.Google Scholar

41 Pipe Roll 14 John (Pipe Roll Society, New Series; London, 1955)Google Scholar, Pipe Roll 16 John (1962), passim.

42 Rot. de Obi. et Fin., pp. 15, 19, 255, 318.

43 Stenton, , Please before King or Justices, II: 291, no. 986Google Scholar; Curia Regis Rolls (Public Record Office, London, 1923—), III: 48, 230Google Scholar. Writs he witnessed, Rot. Lit. Claus., I: 5b, 22b, 51b, 102.Google Scholar

44 Curia Regis Rolls, II: 279Google Scholar; III: 347; IV: 46, 48, 177.

45 Ibid., V: 151, Simon postponed a plea because he was alone.

46 Pollock, Frederick and Maitland, F. W., The History of English Law before the Time of Edward I (Cambridge, 2nd edition, 1898), I: 138.Google Scholar

47 G. D. G. Hall, ed. (London, 1965), introduction, pp. xliii-xlvii.

48 Weinbaum, Martin, London unter Eduard I. und II. (Stuttgart, 1933), II: 65Google Scholar, from Br. Mus. Add. MS. 14252, f. 114v-117r, no. 21; summarized by Bateson, Mary, “A London Municipal Collection of the Reign of John,” English Historical Review, XVII (1902): 709.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

49 f. 50b, On the Laws and Customs of England, ed. Thorne, Samuel E. (Cambridge, Mass., 1968), II: 152Google Scholar; f. 422b, p. 313.

50 Pleas before King or Justices, II: 144, no. 528.Google Scholar

51 Turner, Ralph V., The King and his Courts (Ithaca, N.Y., 1968)Google Scholar, passim.

52 Pipe Roll 9 John (Pipe Roll Society, New Series; London, 1946), p. 207Google Scholar; Rot. de Obl. et Fin., pp. 412, 417. The plea roll account does not indicate that the justices gave the two parties leave to agree, Curia Regis Rolls, V: 58–59Google Scholar. Later King John pardoned Simon and his associate of their amercements, Rot. Lit. Claus., I: 113, 114.Google Scholar

53 Sayles, G. O., Select Cases in the Court of King's Bench under Edward I (Selden Society, LV: London, 1936), I: lxxi.Google Scholar

54 Meekings, C. A. F., Crown Pleas of the Wiltshire Eyre, 1249 (Wilts. Archaeological and Natural History Society, Records Branch, Vol. XLII for 1960), p. 12.Google Scholar

55 Rotuli Chartarum (Record Commission, London, 1837), p. 70Google Scholar, cited in Foss, Edward, The Judges of England (London, 1848), II: 101.Google Scholar

56 E. g. the remainder of his farm of the county in 1209, an amercement in 1207, and scutage in 1212.

57 Meetings, Crown Pleas of Wilts. Eyre, p. 13; Hastings, Margaret, The Court of Common Pleas in the Fifteenth Century (Ithaca, N.Y., 1947), p. 83.Google Scholar

58 Meekings, p. 13; Sayles, , Select Cases in Court of King's Bench, I: lxxvi–lxxviii.Google Scholar

59 Complete Peerage, X: 312Google Scholar, note “g”, identifies Simon's wife as Amice, daughter of William le Chivaler, lord of the manor of Tolleshunt, Essex, based on a 1316 plea between a certain Walter of Pattishall and the abbott of Osyth's, St., Year Books of 10 Edward II (1316-1317) Selden Society, LII; London, 1934), pp. 113–21Google Scholar. But the Simon mentioned in the plea must have been the grandson (d. 1274) of the Simon who was a judge under King John.

60 Eustace de Fauconberg became treasurer in 1217, and Henry of London became justiciar of Ireland in 1221. Both were clerics, and they also became bishops.

61 In 1199, Simon held at farm for 20 s. the land of John de Curci at Milton Malsor, Northants., and of William de Mallium at Willaveston, Rutland, Pipe Roll 1 John, p. 20. In 1200, the king granted him by charter two houses in Northampton for 16 d. yearly, part of the escheat of Benedict the Jew of York, Rot. Chart., p. 52. In 1201 Simon held the escheated land of Josce of Wallingford in Northants. by charter and by the service of eighteen geese, Pipe Roll 3 John (Pipe Roll Society, New Series; London, 1936, p. 178Google Scholar). Sometime between the death of the count of Perche in 1202 and the grant of his lands to one of the king's natural sons in 1204, Simon had custody of the count's lands, Rot. Lit. Claus., 1:1, 3bGoogle Scholar. In 1205-1206 he had custody of the lands of the widow Matilda de Cauz at Milton Malsor, Northants., Pipe Roll 7 John, p. 226, 8 John, p. 176. By 1212, Simon held at the king's will the escheated manor of Waddesdon, Bucks., Red Book of the Exchequer, ed. Hall, Hubert (Rolls Series, London, 1897), II: 600.Google Scholar

62 Holt, J. C., The Northerners (Oxford, 1961), p. 226.Google Scholar

63 In 1190 he assumed a debt of £30 owed at Heyford. Simon was to hold the land for an annual rent of a pound of pepper to Robert and 10 s. to its chief lords, Pipe Roll 2 Richard I, p. 6; Pipe Roll 3 and 4 Richard I, pp. 157-58. In 1200 Simon held half a knight's fee in Whatefield, Suff., of the abbey of Bury St. Edmunds, Chronicle of Jocelin of Brakelond, ed. Butler, H. E. (Edinburgh, 1949), p. 89Google Scholar; He also held of Bush-mead Priory, Bedfords., part of the barony of Eaton Socon, Farrer, , Honors and Knights Fees, III: 251Google Scholar; The Book of Fees (Public Record Office, London, 1921–1931), II: 888Google Scholar. In 1201 Simon made a final concord with William de Lefremund by which he gained one and a half knight's fees in Malsor, Milton and Collingtree, Northants., Facsimiles of early Charters from Northamptonshire Collections (Northamptonshire Record Society, IV; Northampton, 1930), pp. 156–57Google Scholar. Earlier, William had acknowledged Simon's right to the moieties of the advowson of the churches at Milton Malsor and Collingtree, Curia Regis Rolls, I: 120Google Scholar. During 1201-12, Simon paid scutage on a quarter of a knight's fee in Surrey, Red Book of Exchequer, L: 148Google Scholar. In 1202, nine bovates in Great Panton, Lines, were quitclaimed to Simon for his payment of a silver mark, Feet of Fines for the County of Lincoln, Pipe Roll Society, New Series; London, 1954), pp. 74–75, no. 159Google Scholar. Simon also held land in the royal forest, for in 1204-5 he received rights to assart 60 A. of wood at Le Hay, and 120 A. on the heath of Estley Rot. Chart., pp. 131b, 152. In 1207 Simon's right to nine virgates in Hillesdon, Bucks., was acknowledged, Farrer, , Honors and Knights Fees, I: 93Google Scholar. Simon gained the manor of Cold Higham and Grimscot, Northants., from the prior of Dunstable, Farrer, I: 93; and he held four virgates in Ascote from the abbot of Cirencester, Ross, C.D., ed., The Cartulary of Cirencester Abbey, Gloucestershire (London, 1964), II: 559, no. 665Google Scholar. In 1209 William de Bethune granted Simon the manor of Rothersthorpe (or Chocques), Northants, to hold by service of one knight and payment of £10 annually, Rot. Chart., p. 184b. When scutages were assessed in 1211, Simon owed 3 s. for two bovates at Swillington, Yorks., Pipe Roll 16 John, p. 86. In 1214, Simon quitclaimed one virgate in Winton, Lines., in exchange for aloft at Stamford with two shops below and an oven which he was to hold for 7 d. yearly rent. Feet of Fines for Lines., pp. 171-72, no. 333.

64 Painter, Sidney, The Reign of King John (Baltimore, 1949), p. 19.Google Scholar

65 For Walter, see Complete Peerage, X: 313Google Scholar; Farrer, , Honors and Knights Fees, I: 93Google Scholar. For Hugh, Foss, , Judges, II: 437–38.Google Scholar

66 Holt, , Northerners, pp. 220–21.Google Scholar

67 Rot. Lit. Claus., I: 200.Google Scholar

68 Rot. Lit. Pat., p. 138; Memoranda Roll 10 John (Pipe Roll Society, New Series; London, 1957), p. 141, no. 104Google Scholar, letter of protection in a previously unpublished close roll for May 1215.

69 Rot. Lit. Claus., I: 244.Google Scholar

70 Ibid., 1:270, 30 Mar. 1216.

71 Complete Peerage, X: 312Google Scholar. A Robert of Pattishall was abbot of Pipewell, The Heads of Religious Houses in England and Wales 940-1216, eds. Knowles, David, Brooke, C. N. L., Vera London (Cambridge, 1972), p. 139.Google Scholar

72 A house and land at Stamford, Lincs., Calendar of Charter Rolls (Public Record Office, London, 1903—), I: 205.Google Scholar

73 Matthaei Parisiensis Chronica Majora, ed. Luard, H. R. (Rolls Series, London, 1872–1884), III: 296, 542.Google Scholar